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First Dings: Wharton and MIT

Yep, after all of the invites this was a bummer. First I got a ding from Wharton on Nov 3 and then from MIT.

Well, with MIT I wasn’t really disappointed, because my app was really bad, I didn’t even plan applying, but their question was similar to one of my essays, and I thought: “Why not?”, I didn’t believe that I was going to apply in R2 anyways, so this was ‘now or never’.

MIT’s application was quite easy, they didn’t require TOEFL/IELTS scores (neither did I have them), so I decided to give it a try. They have this system with 8-9 criteria based on which they review each app, and the better ones get to be in top-right corner of their coordinate system.

Now, I understand that I have made some mistakes in my approach (because of the rush) as was expected. I don’t think that ‘optional’ essays were ‘mandatory’ as some say, as some people received invites without a single click on their videos/web-sites coming from MIT.

Anyways, great school, probably a great fit for a geek like me, but an expected result.

With Wharton the situation was somewhat similar in that I wasn’t planning to apply as I didn’t like a lot about the school and wanted to apply to only one of H/S/W, but the dates for Wharton were so convenient and I already had to skip H due to an early date and S as I didn’t like my essay. I had plenty of time, though looking back now I think that my essays were a bit too professional? It’s hard to tell, I really liked the work I did and I thought that I have a decent chance, so maybe they didn’t like LoR’s or my profile or something else, maybe my essays weren’t as good as I thought, maybe they didn’t like certain things that I said about my goals, I didn’t want to concentrate on Wharton being Finance school, maybe that was a mistake. Anyways, probably we will never know.

Wharton’s ding came first, at a date they scheduled (great initiative!) and I was crushed a bit, unlike with MIT, I have no particular answer as to why I was dinged, so it makes you think you’re overall profile is not good enough, which is quite scary.

Anyways, first decision date is soon, so my focus is on that.

I want to thank MIT and Wharton alums who I reached out to and who provided me with a lot of great insights (after which Wharton got higher in my personal rating and MIT dropped a bit lower) and advice.